Republic Wireless is an upstart taking on some of the biggest behemoths in American industry—the major cell carriers—armed with WiFi as its main weapon. Republic keeps costs low by encouraging the use of WiFi on cell phones, though customers can still access 3G voice and data services, if needed. Though the service has some drawbacks, including a high startup cost, the previously limited service no longer has formal limits on usage, and it could pose a serious challenge to the standard carrier contract.

Did we mention it costs only $19 a month?

We love WiFi

Republic Wireless is a carrier meant for people who have limited use for carrier connectivity, people who are always near WiFi access points. Of course, it's already possible to set up a WiFi-only "phone" on the cheap; an old Android phone or iPhone plus some free apps like Google Voice or Skype, and you're in business. Republic's advantage is that it's a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) similar to Virgin Mobile or Boost Mobile, with full access to Sprint's cellular network, but set up so that it can benefit from the improved access provided by WiFi signals.

The idea that that customers should prefer WiFi for the good of the network is not a foreign concept, at least for frugal customers of major carriers. In the past, I wouldn't pay for more than a monthly 200MB from AT&T, and so was always moving between safe WiFi havens, chastizing myself for outrageous indulgences like playing YouTube videos over 3G. But Republic takes it to a new level.

When the service first launched in beta last year, Republic had a fair use policy that laid out guidelines for acceptable use. Customers could use 1,200 minutes, 3,600 texts, or 600MB of data on the cell network each month, though this amount could vary based on the proportion of active users offloaded to WiFi ( the rule of thumb was that at least 60 percent usage should be offloaded). The system also used a moving average to track use, so a month heavy on cellular use could be offset by a month followed by lots of WiFi use.

But the usage index and fair use policy were "too difficult of a concept to communicate," Kevin LaHaise, a Republic representative, told Ars. "Whenever we gave example numbers of usage patterns that would be safely within the Fair Use Policy, people thought they were 'caps.' And they weren't."

The guidelines and fair use policy have since been scrapped. Republic is now officially unlimited, and it allows customers to monitor their cellular use online. If customers abuse the the network with tethering over 3G or similar activity, LaHaise says, "we are probably forced to cancel their service." But for the moment, in the beta, the service is really and truly unlimited and will stay that way "until we either achieve economic sustainability or become convinced that doing so is impossible," reads the company's blog post on the subject.

Republic's use of Sprint, the third-best network, as its supplementary cell service can sometimes be disappointing, though the reliability and availability will vary depending upon where you live and where you go. When Sprint's 3G struggles to break 500Kbps on downloads, we might step over a dead body for access to a WiFi signal, so we doubt that Republic will have to push users to prefer WiFi to cell service.

The LG Optimus S, the only phone currently offered by Republic Wireless

So far, Republic has only one phone available, and it's not one we'd choose for ourselves: an LG Optimus S running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. With a washed-out 320x480 screen, mediocre 3.2-megapixel camera, and 600MHz processor, the phone is serviceable at best. The startup cost is high, too, so look away if you're of a weak constitution—Republic's only phone costs $200 up front. Once you're that far in the hole, though, you're without a contract and paying only $19 per month for cell phone service.

The Republic phone works fine over WiFi when it's making calls, though the Optimus S model isn't much for audio quality—a shame, since there's a lot of bandwidth to work with there. Some customers reported problems with sending texts over WiFi, and we found that texts from the Optimus S sometimes didn't arrive at their destination for upwards of 15 minutes; other times, they arrived instantly.

A phone meant to be connected to WiFi the majority of the time is admittedly not for everyone, but it could work for many. I couldn't personally commit to Republic's service given the LG Optimus S as the only available phone, but if you don't need a cutting-edge device, it's worth checking out.

The selection and quality of handsets will be a hard problem to solve—phones from AT&T and Verizon like the iPhone or Samsung Galaxy Nexus only seem so affordable because their real cost is subsidized by your monthly two-year contract payments. LaHaise says that Republic has no current plans to let users bring their own phones to the service, though it is working on introducing a new phone.

When asked about the scalability of the business model, LaHaise says that "the sky is the limit"—usage of WiFi could allow a business like Republic Wireless to grow very quickly.

The Republic model poses a terrific challenge to the standard two-year, wallet-gouging contracts from "Big Cell," as Republic calls its competitors. But even Republic remains incredibly reliant on one of the major carriers for success. Without Sprint's cellular service to back up the phone's services on WiFi, Republic wouldn't be nearly as compelling. If the current model does turn out to be economically feasible, though, it could offer some much-needed low-priced cell service options for a certain type of user.

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Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

62 Reader Comments

I have my wife's teenage sister on my calling plan, and something like this would be *ideal*. The Optimus is just a straight-up awful phone, though. Any word on when a more capable model might be in the offering?

I don't know what options there are in the US, but wouldn't getting a Pay-as-you-go (no contract, no monthly charges, you just buy call time if and when you need it) phone of your own choice, and then use something like Viber on it, make more sense and be cheaper for this proposed usage model?

Money and contracts aside, wouldn't you be killing your battery life in Wi-Fi roaming mode all the time? I have a BB torch (paid for by work so I'm not complaining and actually like it) and while battery life is great, It does seem to discharge faster when the Wi-Fi radio is active. My wife's HTC drains like a sieve with Wi-Fi enabled.

And a challenger appears! With any luck, Republic can get some new phone hardware and work out a few more details. Of course if they turn out to be successful at all AT&T, Sprint, and VZW will sue them into oblivion but one can hope that we'll be freed from out $70-$100/mo plans sometime, right?

I really like this model since I'm on wifi constantly. In fact I barely regret not being in a 4g coverage area. Their phone is unacceptable however. Also, how do they handle porting of numbers, google voice compatibility etc?

I use sipdroid and pbxes, google voice and a sip client. I pay less than a penny a minute and pretty much get unlimited talk and text for $5/month. Tmobile has a deal with walmart where you get 100mins and 5gb of data for $30 (including taxes) so for about $35/month I get unlimited everything (never go over 5gb so it's unlimited to me).

I don't see the point paying $19 for such a small amount of data, text and bandwidth other than to "stick it to the man" even though you will be using his network. Also, I think plenty of people would buy their phone upfront if they got a cheap cell phone plan for it. I bought my galaxy note for 700 and didn't care and my mom bought her hd7 outright for $250 because tmobile gave her a discounted plan.

I keep hearing all these bad words about 2 year contracts and as a Canadian it is really driving me to go to executives houses for Rogers and Bell and punch them in the face, while burning down the companies buildings at night.

You think 2 year contracts are bad, come to Canada where the initial cost is the same, the plan is more expensive, the stats and quality for the network are worst and of course the contract lasts 3 years.

Or perhaps I should punch CRTC executives for not making it unlawful to serve a contract longer than 2 years.

Cincinnati Bell has actually offered a hybrid WiFi/Cellular service since (I think) 2006, currently branded as Fusion WiFi. They offer two Blackberry models, and do have a no-contract option- but minutes are only unlimited over wifi, and it's nowhere near as cheap as this.

I keep hearing all these bad words about 2 year contracts and as a Canadian it is really driving me to go to executives houses for Rogers and Bell and punch them in the face, while burning down the companies buildings at night.

You think 2 year contracts are bad, come to Canada where the initial cost is the same, the plan is more expensive, the stats and quality for the network are worst and of course the contract lasts 3 years.

Or perhaps I should punch CRTC executives for not making it unlawful to serve a contract longer than 2 years.

Someone needs to be beaten for being painfully dumb and ignorant.

Here I was thinking that Canadians were always superior to us Yankee cowboy barbarians at your southern gates.

Buddy of mine recently joined. Talked with him for an hour, had a few problems when he tried to use WiFi actually, so switching to the cell network fixed it. Besides the initial problems, it worked really well. And I am at least jealous of the cost! But as someone who travels very frequently, it probably would not be an adequate solution.

And a side note, at least when he joined, he was given a "half-off" offer of some sort, where each phone was $100. Even for a crappy phone, $238 (1 month of service and 2 phones for my wife and I) is not TOO much more than then ~$170ish we pay. I think if they can bring the entry fee down to the $100 mark, the demand would go up significantly. Heck, for that price, I'd be willing to give it a shot, and then possibly cancel my iPhone after a month or two. Fortunately our contract is over. I like having an iPhone, but not enough to warrant $85/month. And we either need to upgrade, to simply justify some of the subsidy cost we are STILL paying despite our contract being over, or look into something like this. Hmm...

I'm sure I'll lose geek cred for saying this, but I've been using that phone for a year. It works fine, it's cheap (well, it's cheap through Sprint, I probably wouldn't pay $200 for it though), and it runs Android. Granted, I don't use it much as I'm at a computer pretty much all day, but I suspect a lot of the people running around with high-end Android phones and iPhones would get by just fine with it.

What do most people (not most Arsians, most *people*) use phones for, anyway? If it can do calls, texting, angry birds, and bad pictures, it covers a vast majority of the market.

I've been using the service in conjunction with Google Voice over the past two months and really it works quite well. Additionally, I'm extra happy about the decision since they did away with the wifi offsetting requirements and opened up the service to be truly unlimited.

The only trouble I occasionally have is that if I'm leaving a location with WiFi I'll occasionally have to switch WiFi off manually because my phone will still be picking up the WiFi from in the house, but the signal is really too weak to make a call. They're working on handoff compatibility, so that should eventually go away (right now if you drop wifi on a wifi call the call drops instead of falling back to the cellular network).

The Optimus actually isn't a terrible phone - certainly a no-frills device though. I really miss the larger screen on my HTC EVO, but when I'm saving about $80/mo I have no problem waiting until they land some more devices. When I was signing up I was really worried about using a somewhat limited device, but at this point I don't think most people with cutting edge devices actually need as much power as they think they do.

If you're even remotely interested you should really give it a shot once the beta opens up again (TBA) - You have a month to try it out and if you don't like it just send the phone back and they'll refund you. You really don't have a lot to lose. Between my wife and I we'll be saving nearly $1200 a year!

I use sipdroid and pbxes, google voice and a sip client. I pay less than a penny a minute and pretty much get unlimited talk and text for $5/month. Tmobile has a deal with walmart where you get 100mins and 5gb of data for $30 (including taxes) so for about $35/month I get unlimited everything (never go over 5gb so it's unlimited to me).

I don't see the point paying $19 for such a small amount of data, text and bandwidth other than to "stick it to the man" even though you will be using his network. Also, I think plenty of people would buy their phone upfront if they got a cheap cell phone plan for it. I bought my galaxy note for 700 and didn't care and my mom bought her hd7 outright for $250 because tmobile gave her a discounted plan.

If you continued reading the article you'd see that they lifted all caps. It's unlimited service for $20/mo.

This came across as an opinion and was weird to read in the midst of the rest of the objective article. Sprint may be third best, but why? Area coverage? Speed? Customer satisfaction? Specifying what area they are third best in would help make whatever point you were going for (I believe speed).

I use sipdroid and pbxes, google voice and a sip client. I pay less than a penny a minute and pretty much get unlimited talk and text for $5/month. Tmobile has a deal with walmart where you get 100mins and 5gb of data for $30 (including taxes) so for about $35/month I get unlimited everything (never go over 5gb so it's unlimited to me).

I don't see the point paying $19 for such a small amount of data, text and bandwidth other than to "stick it to the man" even though you will be using his network. Also, I think plenty of people would buy their phone upfront if they got a cheap cell phone plan for it. I bought my galaxy note for 700 and didn't care and my mom bought her hd7 outright for $250 because tmobile gave her a discounted plan.

I just signed up for this plan, literally on friday. it is not a 5GB data plan, it is technically an unlimited Text and Web with 4G speed for the first 5GB, and something slower after that, perhaps 2G. Plus the speed at my work is quite good, 1Mbps down and 1.7Mbps up according to speed test. In addition if your phone supports it, tmobile offers wifi calling that doesn't count towards your minutes.

I probably sound like a tmobile spokesman but after not having a cell phone for 3 years I find this plan and setup to be surprisingly reasonable.the biggest downer is that you need to buy your phone outright, but this is fine by me as Ars ran an article that showed it can actually be cheaper, and I prefer to pay for things up front.

Edit: Also it's also an online deal as well as Walmart, plus you're not limited to the phones offered for the prepaid plans. I went out and bought an HTC Sensation which isn't a prepaid phone, then bought the sim card activation kit and signed up for the plan online. And for those that are curious like I was but couldn't find the information on this plan look here: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans

Money and contracts aside, wouldn't you be killing your battery life in Wi-Fi roaming mode all the time? I have a BB torch (paid for by work so I'm not complaining and actually like it) and while battery life is great, It does seem to discharge faster when the Wi-Fi radio is active. My wife's HTC drains like a sieve with Wi-Fi enabled.

That's because you have a BB> All kidding aside, my Evo will last two days on a charge running on WiFi, after the last two updates. As it switched between WiFi and 3G/4G automatically and disables the radio not in use. Previously if I had enabled WiFi, 3G and 4G would also be enabled and I would be lucky if my battery lasted 4 hours.

I have the T-Mobile version of the LG, and while it's certainly not a superphone, it handles the basics fine. If you're coming from a Nexus you probably won't be too pleased, but it will probably be just fine for anyone stepping up to their first smartphone. That said, $200 seems a bit high - T-Mobile was selling theirs for $150 a while ago.

57Stew wrote:

In my area an open wifi is a rare thing. Where do you all find wifi for the phone to connect to or am I missing something?

I spend most of my time at work or at home, which both have wifi I can use. I bet there's a lot of people in a similar situation.

As a (former) republic wireless user here are some drawbacks that people need to understand:

Problems, some can be resolved soon, some are with the piece of shit phone.- (this is not a permenent one) their account management sucks, they can barely get their own system in order.- Their support is bad. Basically email only, and they get back to you in a day or three, which is a problem if you can't make calls.- The phone they give comes with a permenent 600mhz setting, battery lasts half a day even on standby- Rooted the phone lasts a day via underclocking when screen is off.- No app which lets you track minutes. You need to use a computer. Their site is not even mobile friendly.- Their forum and site are almost as buggy as TheDailyWTF.com- Currently there is no mechanism for switching automatically between wifi and 3g. It will try calling via wifi, then 3g if wifi fails. When it switches, google voice breaks.- Basically because there is no way mid-call to use wifi or cell you are screwed with bad reception most of the time unless you ensure you are calling via 3g.- I've had delays between 3 and 12 seconds between me saying something, and the other side replying to what I said, and me hearing it. I've had days where 12 seconds was the norm, it was pretty awful.- The phone sucks big time. Screen is not accurate, and it is really slow. I tried using google voice where I answer a call right away and GV asks me to press 1 to indicate i am human... I had the phone freeze up for 20 SECONDS! and missed the call being unable to press "1".- Often when talking the phone's sensor does not recognize i am holding it against my face, button presses like mute are painful.- Basically the phone is shit.- Wifi calling is hit-or-miss. If you are moving even with wifi spots around you it does not work. You need to be right in the middle of a hotspot to make a call. Otherwise 3g is better.- I use tethering a lot, with RW tethering makes no sense. Working on the bus no longer possible.

Big Up sides:- The phone is rooted by default. Clockwork mod recovery is installed when you get the phone; getting superuser on the phone is painless.- If they release the kernel source, an overclock may be possible.- With root, you can install notigo and angeldialer and have a T9 dialer vs the piece of crap stock android dialer.

Well, this sounds like a pretty great option if I ever want to get off of the family plan...plus I'm an "independent contractor" at work, not an employee, so I can claim the cost of a cell phone against taxes.

- Wifi uses more power than 3g when checking for connections, but when connected it is really inexpensive power wise. Fastest connection.- 3g uses less power to check, but more to transfer. Also slower than wifi.- 4g all depends. If the antena is embedded in the other antenna chip like with the new nexus phone, it is fairly inexpensive (still worse than 3g). Otherwise it drains battery like you would not believe 4 hrs after turning it on, phone dies regardless of activity. Devices like HTC Evo (all models) have the separate chip. I think the latest htc patch makes the battery a bit better.

For what it's worth - I don't have any of the problems with the phone that GrandMasterBirt has. Additionally, call screening by pressing one is a Google Voice feature to screen calls, it has nothing to do with proving that you're human (unless of course there's another issue I'm not aware of).

I also haven't run into any problems with their portal or website - though, the information provided is pretty minimal as it's still a beta service.

The lack of on-the-fly switching between 3G and WiFi networks is accurate, though apparently they're releasing an update soon.

I don't really get the gripe against lack of tethering - it's silly to expect that at $20/mo...

I don't understand how their business model would make sense to an economist. Their business model seems to rely heavily on the milk of human kindness, which, let's be honest . . .

Their business model is as follows: Many internet companeis give you wifi hotspots (verizon, cablevision, time warner) and you can use those when you are out. At home you call via wifi. So only the minutes you use when on the go count towards your limit. The best part is that if you are a cord-cutter, calling from a cell phone at home becomes completely free.

Because some users will use very little bandwidth and others more, they can charge small fees, distributed model. Everyone pools their money, and only when you really need to do you go over limit, otherwise everyone stays in their limits and everyone is happy from customers to business.

Money and contracts aside, wouldn't you be killing your battery life in Wi-Fi roaming mode all the time? I have a BB torch (paid for by work so I'm not complaining and actually like it) and while battery life is great, It does seem to discharge faster when the Wi-Fi radio is active. My wife's HTC drains like a sieve with Wi-Fi enabled.

My Bold 9700 on T-Mobile actually uses a lot LESS battery when I'm on wi-fi. Could it be because it's using UMA instead of TDMA for most signaling? It does keep a connection open to the tower since it can handoff if I get out of range of my router, so it's definitely still using both radios.

I keep hearing all these bad words about 2 year contracts and as a Canadian it is really driving me to go to executives houses for Rogers and Bell and punch them in the face, while burning down the companies buildings at night.

You think 2 year contracts are bad, come to Canada where the initial cost is the same, the plan is more expensive, the stats and quality for the network are worst and of course the contract lasts 3 years.

Or perhaps I should punch CRTC executives for not making it unlawful to serve a contract longer than 2 years.

Someone needs to be beaten for being painfully dumb and ignorant.

It doesn't have to be bad in Canada. I have Mobilicity and I pay less than $25 including tax! and get unlimited voice and 3G data and my roaming costs on Roger's own network are cheaper than a Roger's client roaming on Rogers.

For what it's worth - I don't have any of the problems with the phone that GrandMasterBirt has. Additionally, call screening by pressing one is a Google Voice feature to screen calls, it has nothing to do with proving that you're human (unless of course there's another issue I'm not aware of).

I also haven't run into any problems with their portal or website - though, the information provided is pretty minimal as it's still a beta service.

The lack of on-the-fly switching between 3G and WiFi networks is accurate, though apparently they're releasing an update soon.

I don't really get the gripe against lack of tethering - it's silly to expect that at $20/mo...

I said down sides not all necesasrily legit.

The pressing 1 is because I pick up "too fast" so to ensure its not voicemail. The problem is the phone locks up.

Basically:

1) Phone is shit, in all respects.2) problems with service, some getting resolved soon.3) 12 second delay was unacceptable,4) Everyone talked to said to ditch the phone because they could barely make out what I was saying 70% of the time (bad quality calls)5) Support delay of 1-3 days is unacceptable. I can take a delay of a few hrs, but that was ridiculous.

The only thing good about the phone is physical buttons vs touch-buttons which i hate.

I use sipdroid and pbxes, google voice and a sip client. I pay less than a penny a minute and pretty much get unlimited talk and text for $5/month. Tmobile has a deal with walmart where you get 100mins and 5gb of data for $30 (including taxes) so for about $35/month I get unlimited everything (never go over 5gb so it's unlimited to me).

I don't see the point paying $19 for such a small amount of data, text and bandwidth other than to "stick it to the man" even though you will be using his network. Also, I think plenty of people would buy their phone upfront if they got a cheap cell phone plan for it. I bought my galaxy note for 700 and didn't care and my mom bought her hd7 outright for $250 because tmobile gave her a discounted plan.

I just signed up for this plan, literally on friday. it is not a 5GB data plan, it is technically an unlimited Text and Web with 4G speed for the first 5GB, and something slower after that, perhaps 2G. Plus the speed at my work is quite good, 1Mbps down and 1.7Mbps up according to speed test. In addition if your phone supports it, tmobile offers wifi calling that doesn't count towards your minutes.

I probably sound like a tmobile spokesman but after not having a cell phone for 3 years I find this plan and setup to be surprisingly reasonable.the biggest downer is that you need to buy your phone outright, but this is fine by me as Ars ran an article that showed it can actually be cheaper, and I prefer to pay for things up front.

Edit: Also it's also an online deal as well as Walmart, plus you're not limited to the phones offered for the prepaid plans. I went out and bought an HTC Sensation which isn't a prepaid phone, then bought the sim card activation kit and signed up for the plan online. And for those that are curious like I was but couldn't find the information on this plan look here: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans

There are some T-Mobile plans that are only available thru Walmart. The cheapest is now $20/mnth + $39 for a decent phone w/unlimited texting and 200MB of data. (IIRC 200MB of data alone costs $15 from AT&T)

I been happy with the t-mobile $30 a month plan. I don't use phone calls much at all anymore unless reall needed. I use mostly testing, IM and other social media to communicate so 100 minutes a month os fine for me. The 5GB works great and the speeds/coverage for t-mobile here are very good. If your not a heavy talker its a great way to save money on the $80 or more a month plans so many use these days of which many people probably don't make full use of.